Neither Here Nor There
by Reichenbach
Summary: Just another Christmas spent stuck between the Vortex and actual space and time with a broken TARDIS. Rose must find a way to help from another dimension. You know, business as usual. 10th Doctor doomsday fixer upper 8th in the Doors series
1. Chapter 1

Standard Disclaimers Apply. Thanks to Krypto for the quick read-over. Believe it or not this actually part of my insidious plan to eventually get Rose and the Doctor in the same universe. Cleverly disguised, no?

XYZ

Neither Here Nor There

Chapter 1

XYZ

Coming around the console room to the always-empty coat rack, the Doctor prodded the hot pink sleeping bag on the floor at its base with his trainer. She didn't move. He picked up the plate at Violet's head, removing the now slightly stale white bread sandwich from the plate and finished it. Every night she'd eat a single bite of what he gave her, never any more. He wasn't sure how much longer that could continue.

As he dared to contemplate just how long the peanut butter and chopped bananas had been out and on the floor, he watched her for a moment. Other than the rise and fall of her chest, there was no further indication that she was still awake.

Good. It was really hard to do the whole Father Christmas bit with the tyke still up, and it didn't help that Violet'd taken to sleeping in the console room—on the floor—every single night for the last four months. Things had been… rough. But he had some kind of weird hope that only Christmas can bring, that this one day would make all the difference for her.

There'd always been a sort of cheerfulness with her gloom-and-doom attitude. She'd ask how he planned on killing her today, or just how long he thought it'd be before they managed to bring about the destruction of the universe when they got into especially sticky situations before. Now she was just… sullen. Quiet, studious and terribly, impossibly clingy. Her room was now more of a trophy room to hold her collection of various odds and ends from their travels than a bedroom; her doll house sat unused, which annoyed the little wooden doll family to no end, her stack of novels was growing dusty and the bed hadn't been turned down in months.

Sighing, the Doctor lifted one of the grates, pulling out his least favorite wad of cabling and a box of parts. He'd been trying in all of that time to manage another phone call through the void, but it wasn't working. The last two times he'd even tried, the ship had been thrown into the vortex and bounced around like a pinball through time and space.

A few days ago, he'd gotten a call to ring through twice without the ship's location within time and space becoming unstable, even though there'd been no one on the other side to pick it up at the time, and Christmas was the perfect time to make this work.

Digging through the old 1940's style wooden soda crate, he found the tools he was looking for. Maybe talking to her mother would cheer her up. Maybe he'd start to see just some small bit of the girl's old self there.

Violet wasn't eating—the single bite taken out of the sandwich was enough to tell him that. She had gone from six hours of sleep (unconscionable for children on Earth) to three, sometimes four hours. It left him with little time to himself, but he was more worried about the shift in her behavior.

She was more attentive to her studies, and usually fell asleep with a textbook in hand. Some of the subjects she'd been lacking in had improved greatly now that she'd stopped having such a linear mindset when she approached the problems in the texts. The speed with which she was plowing through the work was breakneck. It was all she did, morning till night (they ran strictly on GMT, Violet had insisted upon it years ago, and he'd decided to let her have that battle). It wasn't normal to be that focused on school, no matter how much you enjoyed it. There needed to be time for doing other things, like playing or physical activity. The only real breaks she took were when he got her to help with the ship. There were two things she wanted to know every last bit of: the ship and the Gallifreyan language.

Right now she was laying face down in a text he hadn't started until he was much older.

The subjects she used to have trouble with were now easier. She wasn't a prodigy by his people's standards, but she was finally allowing herself to think like them. He should have been delighted that she was using her full potential and not hindering herself with denial, wishful thinking and a bunch of useless other psychological tactics.

He missed Violet. He missed her sarcasm and humor, he missed her wishful thinking, trick-playing, homework avoiding, eating everything in sight… He missed her humanity.

She wasn't human. He'd been trying to impress that upon her for years—mostly when it caused a problem with her understanding of her texts and practice problems, or when they'd gotten themselves into a jam that would have easily been solved if she hadn't been so…human. But she faked it well enough.

How could she not? She'd spent her early years leading a normal human life. Well, give or take some familial weirdness involving aliens and secret government agencies and such. And being related to Jackie Tyler (which Rose had also somehow managed to overcome, thank God).

She used to like painting her nails (horrid colors like fluorescent green and black—together he might add), playing with her dolls, going on useless missions throughout the ship looking for her lost cat… She'd steal his psychic paper (oh, he knew she was rummaging through his coat pockets when he wasn't wearing it), and she'd go off to her room with it for hours, and he'd hear her laughing at whatever her mind was producing. Knowing the trick never seemed to make it any less magical for her.

And now, here they were.

She didn't like being alone, which didn't bode for him having anything resembling 'Doctor time' as he liked to call it. She studied just about every hour she was awake, didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't laugh…

It was like she'd been replaced with a pod-person. She'd had an extremely trying experience involving a chemical-induced reduction in her natural mental barriers, not to mention the involvement of plant zombies and watching the complete and total upheaval of a peaceful society.

She'd encountered a lot of grown-up things in one twenty-four hour period, in addition to her own convalescence. It had taken her almost a week to get up and about again, and he wasn't sure all of it was due to her need to recover from physical harm.

Their strings had been pulled that time, and had been several times since. He didn't know who was doing the tugging and maneuvering, but something big was out there, coming for them. Perhaps the girl was worried about that as well.

Looking down at the parts in his hands, the Doctor realized he'd been staring off into space. He really did need to work on this. Mostly, he knew, when a kid born on earth wasn't excited about Christmas…there was something seriously, SERIOUSLY wrong.

XYZ

Violet hated when he replaced things on the console. Mostly she hated that he almost never had the correct part, and was making due with something else entirely. The mishmash of technologies and the cluttered appearance of the control column had always made her slightly insane. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, much? He'd always suspected that her need for a tidy console (which for some unknown reason did not translate into a need for for a tidy bedroom) was just one step away from compulsive hand washing.

It was probably why she got along with the other TARDIS so well—back in the day she'd slip off to the pristine white console room and just keep it company. It was a long way from being repaired—the ship (of its own accord) had managed to shove a mostly grown TARDIS into a drinking-straw sized thread between realities and push itself through, and to here. The mere act of departing and arriving in the same place in two separate universes had broken things he didn't even know were capable of breaking. Eventually she'd have to accept that he was going to have to start replacing broken bits with…non-standard parts. He had a better chance of fixing the trans-locational echoing system with a couple a couple of lawn-sized windmills and a roll of sticky tape than he was to get the original parts working again.

He sensed it might be something about 'keeping things as they should be,' whatever that meant. The problem was worse when he went back to working on this particular experiment. It meant dropping thick black cables out of the ceiling and running them into an open hatch below the control panel, thus keeping the hatch open and disrupting the order of things, at least to her perspective. Another reason why he only tried to do this while she was asleep.

Quietly pulling the cables down, he climbed off the railing he'd been using as a step stool, then popped open the appropriate panel. Violet had always been full of wishful thinking, and it might be wishful thinking on his part that he cold finally get this thing to work for Christmas. Oh well, there was always Boxing Day, he supposed, but it wouldn't quite have the same magical flair it would, if he could manage it for Christmas.

He wanted her to believe in fairies again.

XYZ

"Why're you muckin' with that again?" a tired voice asked from behind the Doctor.

He was haunched over a relay and converter, neither seemed to be handling the astral energy conversion at an acceptable rate. It was drawing in massive amounts of energy from the sun they were hovering above, but that energy wasn't being converted into signal. It was just being lost. "Go back to sleep, Vi." But he knew she wouldn't. "Everybody needs a hobby, so never you mind. If I want to putter with the communications systems, I will."

There had never seemed to be a good time to tell her that he'd gotten it to work once. It might have given her some happiness or hope…or it could have made things worse. So he'd told her he was working on the communications systems, and left it at that. When she'd ask why they always needed to be near some vast and powerful star to do it, he got incredibly evasive. This had better just work, because she wouldn't be ignorant forever.

She didn't go back to sleep though—he heard pages turning in her book about two minutes later. It would be useless to ask if she was hungry—she'd just tell him no, maybe later. Getting her out of the room for the test would be impossible.

So this had better just work.

Adjusting the converter to compensate for the perceived loss of signal, he put everything back together and decided to fire everything up. Flipping switches, spinning dials, he grinned when the output remained steady, failing to drop or explode in his face. "Well, Vi. Lets see if this works." If there WAS some being out there interfering with their lives, the Doctor would very much like said being to just give him this one.

It rang. And it rang. And it rang…"Huh?" the voice asked on the other end. A live person!

"Hi, is Rose home?"

There was some shifting. Please don't let him have…"Do you have ANY idea what time it is? And no, Rose ISN'T home. YOU PEOPLE sent her out of town! For Christmas! If my entire family gets killed for the holidays because of some daft 'business' deal with a race of slime-sucking aliens--"

"Jackie!" The Doctor cut her off loudly. "Jackie, listen to me--"

The response was immediate, high pitched and furious. "Who said you could call me Jackie? Who is this, anyway? Just who do you think you are…"

Violet was standing next to him now, a look of shock on her face.

He just grinned before responding. "Jackie Tyler," he interrupted loudly. "I know this is going to be tough for you, you being you and all… but SHUT UP. There's someone here who wants to talk to you." Without waiting for a response, he thrust the phone at Violet. "Say hi to your gran," he whispered. "She misses you." The deranged witch.

Why wasn't Violet smiling? "Gran?"

"Sweetheart? Violet? Is that you, honey?" Jackie was so loud he could hear her from several feet away.

First Violet nodded, forgetting she was on the phone. "Yeah. I'm here." She sounded meek, timid. He almost didn't know this girl. "No. Nothing's wrong. I think it's just a bad connection. I guess that's what happens when you try to stuff a Double-Repeating Camiac wave through a hole in realities." She was so clinical about what he must have done in order to force the signal through. "No, I'm fine. I just woke up. He didn't wake me up, Gran. I just woke up on my own."

He watched her face. It wasn't tense, but it was hardly as relaxed or excited as she should have been in this circumstance. "All kinds of stuff. I finished another set of text books last week. Yeah. I do all the problems." There it was, right there. All the excitement and joy of being out there, where it was all happening—it was gone from her voice. There was no twinkle in her eye…nothing. Not even excitement that she was talking live to a family member another universe away.

She started shifting her eyes back and forth, fidgeting with her oversized t-shirt. "I know. I miss you an' mum and granddad and Uncle Mickey. Yeah, it's Christmas here too. We're supposed to go to Earth for a few days. We got your last pictures…" after a moment, she bit her lip. "The Doctor wants to talk to you again."

Without giving him any chance to stop her, she thrust it at him and began walking away. "Vi, come back! Where--"

"What did you do to her?" Jackie demanded, the sound of it crackling and just a bit distorted in his ear. That's why she hadn't recognized his voice either time he called. Not the greatest connection yet.

The Doctor sighed. "Nothing. Ok, maybe I did. I sprung this on her. It was supposed to be a surprise. A GOOD surprise."

Jackie gave an audible sigh of disgust. "She doesn't sound like she's sleeping properly. You're probably not feeding her right, either."

A tortured smile spread across his lips. "Actually, it's what I wanted to talk to Rose about. She's not sleeping and she's not eating, and--"

"What happened?"

The Doctor didn't say anything. He wasn't sure how to respond. Especially to the tone in her voice. For the moment, the 'it must be your fault' tone in her voice was gone. She was genuinely concerned for Violet, which put them on the same team.

She only let the silence go on so long before prompting him again. "Go on. Something must have happened. She doesn't sound like my granddaughter. So either something's happened, or you've managed to keep her blocked off from people for so long you've made her alien." Which was one of the fears Jackie'd always had for Rose—that he'd change her into something unrecognizable.

Closing his eyes, the Doctor sat on the grill, using one knee as an armrest and tucking the other leg beneath him. Leaning back against the console, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "She's not human, Jackie. She's not even half human, any more. And I don't mean the way she's acting. Her genetics have been overwritten. Probably started with the surge caused by the universe expanding, but would have happened on its own over time. I'm sorry Jackie—she's just not…well, human."

"That isn't what I mean, and you KNOW it!" Oh good. They were back to her hating him. "She's my grandbaby, and she's a sweet little girl, and you should keep her that way."

That's what that phone call was supposed to do. "She had…a bit of an upset…" he began. There was no way in the universe Jackie wouldn't blame him for this, but he had her here and now, and maybe—just maybe she could help with Violet.

He explained what had happened on the colony… not seeing much point in sparing the details. Ugh. Talking to Jackie was painful. Admitting that he was failing with the thing she held most dear—why not just stick a knife in him? It'd be easier.

When he finished, there was silence. Great. "Jackie?"

More silence. Maybe the connection had dropped.

Finally he heard breathing on the other end. "I'm thinking it over. First of all, she needs to sleep in a bed. Second, if she gets up early, make her go back to bed. Don't even let her out till the alarm goes off, whether she goes back to sleep or not. No books, nothing to do. Make her a cup of tea before bed, tuck her in, read her a story, and then shut off the light an LEAVE."

He rammed his head against the metal plating of the console. "Don't you think I've tried that? What can I do if she refuses to go to bed in her bed? Lock her in her room?"

Jackie's exasperation with him was evident. "What good are you? You're useless."

"Thanks," he mumbled.

There was another moment's lull in the conversation. "Look, I'm sure you're doing your best." It probably took ten years off her life saying that to him, the Doctor mused. "But you're the adult. She's the child. She doesn't GET to make decisions for herself. I don't care how clever or conniving she is. If you say she has to sleep in a bed, she has to sleep in a bed."

"And if not?"

"There're consequences." It sounded so…manipulative. Jackie was slightly evil. He'd always known that about her, but it was really rearing its ugly head at the moment. "No television or whatever it is you do out there. No games… well, I guess if she's not paying attention to that anyway… no traveling. Tell her you'll both stay right where you are until she behaves."

"But she's not misbehaving!" It had come out much more forcefully than he'd intended—mostly it was fueled by a frustration that had been building for months. "She's just—I don't know--"

She saved him the burden of having to go on by cutting him off. "Children need boundaries and structure. Even if she's going through a rough time, she's not going to get over it till there's some sameness in her life. I never let her sleep anywhere but her bed. Rose never let her out of her room until the alarm went off. Otherwise she'd be wandering around the house making trouble at all hours of the night and day."

Running his hand through his hair, he turned it over and over in his mind, not sure what to do about it.

Jackie must have taken his silence as resistance. "We've got you bested on this one. Just admit I know what I'm talkin' about. If she gives you a hard time, tell her that her gran said she'll get a swift paddling next time I see her, if she doesn't listen."

The Doctor had no idea if she was serious or not. Jackie was, after all, bonkers.

"And for God-sakes. Whatever you do, DON'T you DARE--"

The ship lurched only once, but hard enough that he landed on his side, slammed into the grill floor. He was still clutching the phone, but his arms had gone out in front of him to cushion the fall. Putting the phone back up to his ear, he started getting to his feet, looking at monitors. "Jackie, are you there?"

It was dead, and they'd jumped again. Dammit. The last time the connection had lasted for nearly four hours. This time it was more like a half of an hour, and it had sent the ship skipping through the vortex like stone across water.

Looking at the monitors, he started trying to pinpoint their location. Nothing was readily apparent. He couldn't get a fix on anything near-by, so frame of reference was going to be tricky…

Punching in calculations, he sighed. "Damn. Dammit, dammit dammit, and dammit all to hell." This would be fun, except he had other things to worry about just now. Which was another reason he was so angry. The TARDIS had gotten a tad domestic when she arrived, what with attending to the constant needs of a small child and all. But they'd been traveling companions as well. He was teaching her about the universe, showing her new places, new things… he liked that roll, of teacher, guide, sometimes-friend. Jackie was asking him to be something he wasn't sure he was capable of being—a parent.

Why did Violet have to be so damned complicated?

And why was he getting absolutely NO reading from the sensors about a ship that he could very plainly see on the visual external monitors? That rather long imperial type war ship with the guns pointing directly towards the TARDIS?

Well, it seemed that Christmas was destined to be for crap. Maybe he could try New Years?

TBC…


	2. Chapter 2

Standard Disclaimers Apply. Thanks to Emma for the fast beta. UR Roxor111. Hey… two more stories after this one, then that's it, there aint no more!

XYZ

Neither Here Nor There

Chapter 2

XYZ

"No, no, no, no…NO-no-no." Eyes fixed on the external display, the Doctor slapped controls, trying to get something—anything-to work properly. Something that could be construed as a defensive measure might be nice…

On the monitor, the many gun turrets began glowing as they were being charged. A warning would have been polite. But really—the TARDIS was small; it should have looked like space junk. Why were they firing up every single gun on the ship?

Wondering if there had been a power surge, or if the console wasn't getting enough power, or if it didn't know what to do with the power it had… the Doctor kicked the cabling out of the access hatch, unceremoniously disconnecting it. Pushing past the dangling black wires, he tried to start her up again, to get them anywhere but here.

It was then that he noticed the bright lights on the monitors—they were firing.

Slowly his face melted from screwed up with concentration to slack jawed and wide-eyed. Those should have been direct hits. The angle of descent, the firing pattern…

Running around to the other side of the console, he saw the weapons fire disappearing into the nothingness behind them.

"Oh this is weird." Even for him, this was weird. Usually when people scored direct hits, you like, blew up and stuff.

Removing the cabling from the console had done absolutely nothing to aid their cause. Reaching into the hatch, he ripped out the converter he'd had such a terrible time installing. A few extra lights hummed to life on the console, and he checked the external sensors—nothing. Moving on to energy readings, he looked at the figures, pulled out his glasses, then looked at them again. They were still reading flat-line for real-space. However, the vortex levels were spiked.

The ship lurched again, popping out of time and place. It spun as it hurled itself somewhere that he had no control of, lurched one more time for good measure as it popped out of the vortex, tossing him clear over the railing and onto a lower access grate. It hurt. — A lot.

The lights flickered half a dozen times, then settled on being out. The console still glowed and a few emergency systems slowly churned to life, but that was it. They were…wherever they were. And he didn't mean that in a Buckaroo Banzai kind of way—mostly wherever they were at, they were stuck there for the time being.

Looking at the sensors after he climbed back over the rail, he checked the monitor. Earth—the placement of the continents put it anywhere between, oh, 1700 and, say 2100. He knew it couldn't be later than that—there'd been that whole…thing, with the simultaneous earthquakes, and several landmasses going the way of Atlantis and all that. So, yeah. Good…four hundred years or so margin for error on the 'when' thing.

Hoping his equipment could tell him more, he looked at the readings—same as last time. They had to be broken. He could SEE Earth. They weren't in the Vortex.

Or were they? Those energy blasts had appeared to go right through them.

Oh hell. What if they were half-materialized somewhere? Either a transparent ghost in space, or not even really there at all. Stuck in the moment between the TARDIS moving in and out and in to space and time.

A few more lights on the console flickered then died away.

'Where' seemed immaterial at this point, both literally and figuratively. Which made 'when' irrelevant. It didn't matter, they weren't really anywhere at the moment. However, they were stuck there, until he figured out just how much that short phone call had cost him, and figured out how to reverse the charges.

XYZ

The ship had pitched hard, twice. The additional gravity stabilizers in the other ship provided some buffer, otherwise Violet'd have probably been slammed into a wall with the second hit.

If she knew their luck, they'd landed in the middle of a war, or worse. Oh well. He'd come find her if she was needed.

Sitting under the white console, knees pulled to her chest, Violet stared out into nothing, trying not to think. Her gran had sounded so much like… her gran. It was unnerving, and she didn't know why. Why hadn't she wanted to stay on the phone with her gran?

And the Doctor…well, he'd been trying. He'd probably meant it to be a very good thing, which she appreciated. It was the thought that counted, or so her mum said when people gave her weird gifts for birthdays and Christmas.

Christmas.

She couldn't say she was looking forward to it, or Christmas on Earth. She didn't know why. The idea of snow and pine trees and fake good will and charity that would last only until January 1st, or until a bunch of stupid adults began clamoring and clawing in a toy store for the 'perfect' toy for their child…she just couldn't stand it.

As if there were such a thing as perfect. For everything given, something was taken away. The universe's way of balancing the scales, she supposed. Sometimes, when she was bored, she tried to figure out the mathematical proportions of the given/taken away formula, but it seemed fairly random. She wasn't sure if she believed in 'random' or 'chance' or even 'luck' any more.

Truthfully, she wasn't sure what she believed in. It certainly wasn't fairies or Father Christmas. It wasn't in ever getting home (oh how certain she'd been when she'd first gotten here, that she'd go back to her family some day! It was shameful). She didn't know what the future held for her. Those seemed to be the only possibilities she didn't see, which often made her worry.

The door swung open, interrupting her thoughts. "Got some…interesting trouble."

Sighing, she got to her feet and headed for the door. "I'd like to think that all trouble is interesting. Mostly I hope it keeps your interest long enough to get out of it."

As she walked past, the Doctor ruffled her hair. "You'll like this one—we're stuck half way between the vortex and some random point in Earth's history. Well—until the ship decides to jump again. Then we'll be stuck between the vortex and some other random place and time. By the way, it's after midnight according to my watch. Merry Christmas. We can do the whole presents and warm drinks thing now, or after we're in an actual place, I suppose. Whatever you want to do."

She didn't say anything. It just took too much energy to be insulting, any more.

XYZ

Within an hour they had the lights restored. About five minutes after that, when they started working on the other power problems, a satellite phased through the ship, disrupting the energy in the ship again.

With a few more flickers, they found themselves right back where they'd started. It also knocked off about three centuries off his previous estimate of what time they were in. Which was, again, irrelevant (he hoped). Of course, why hadn't he seen them on the external monitors before? He'd be really upset if they were stuck between the vortex, a place, and two separate times. That'd be even trickier to sort.

Sighing, the Doctor got his head out of the access panel. "Alright. I think we need to take a minute and think about this." Sitting forward, he gestured for Violet to stop digging around under the grates. She put down the large set of wire cutters, closed the grate and sat on it silently. "We've got to either find a way to make ourselves skip to the middle of nowhere, or move outside of the range of these satellites at least, otherwise every time we get somewhere, we'll be going through this. Of course, we don't exactly have the power to do either, right now. So. Thoughts?"

Violet bit her lower lip for a moment. "Divert everything to the control column? It may be enough to get her started."

Nodding, the Doctor got to his feet, still in thought. "Possible. Reattach the energy converter and use the sun to make some useful energy. Of course, the converter may have been part of the problem. While it'd be ironic if it were part of the solution, it's also probably unlikely." He held a hand out to her. "I'd think better with tea."

She didn't move to take his hand. "I don't want any, thank you."

Leaning a little closer, he gestured with his hand for her to take it. "I also think better when I have someone to think AT. So, sorry, you're coming with me."

The girl didn't sigh—she didn't need to. The resignation was written in her slumped shoulders as she followed him. They needed a few minutes to plan their next move, and other than their power problems, coupled with their utter stuck-ness, they didn't seem to be any immediate danger.

It wasn't necessarily true that a watched pot never boiled, but it sure did make for nice awkward silences. He wasn't sure where to start just yet, so he just leaned on the counter, watching the kettle.

It finally whistled, steam curling up into the air. Watching it for a moment, he let it go on—that humid howling for just a bit too long before removing it. That wasn't how the silence should have been filled either…

Tea was poured, and then there was more silence. She stared at her cup. He stared at her. "You should drink up, before it gets cold. Don't waste it—this stuff's vintage Boston Tea Party. Well, the stuff we didn't throw overboard—that stuff's a bit useless. I mean, used tea is one thing, but you don't know the things they used to dump into that harbor. Talk about a lesson in unsanitary…"

She used to be so quirky about her tea. Enough sugar to put a bear into a coma, a touch of milk some days, some days not, then she'd drink it with a straw. This she just picked up and tossed back, still piping—probably just to shut him up. Well, at least she was being quirky with her mood swings. It showed that there was still some hope, or that he wanted to see that there was hope. "Problem at hand," she reminded him.

Staring over the rim of his cup, he nodded. "Right. The problem at hand. So, something I did with the power routing's zapped us to a happy in-between place and now we're stuck. Summed up the situation enough? But more importantly, I managed to connect a call all the way through to another reality, making me supreme ruler of telephone operators, and you got to talk to your gran for all of five minutes before thrusting the phone at me and walking off. I'd like to know why." He wasn't mad, but he was thoroughly concerned.

The eyes that looked up at were round and hollow. They weren't just dry—they were lack-luster. "She always fusses too much."

Putting the half-full teacup on the counter beside him, he folded both arms over his chest, sizing her up. She seemed to actually believe that. "Vi, she's your gran, she's going to fuss." That thought almost made him sentimental (almost!). Looking up at the low-hung brownish red ceiling, his lips twitched, caught between a grimace and a smile and not knowing what to do. "I'd bring your mum home, and first thing, it'd be the customary scolding about staying away too long and me getting her killed. She had it down to a science. It was…kabuki-esque. If that's not a word, it should be. But once that business was out of the way, she'd start fussing with tea and running out to buy something to make for dinner." He gave a visible shudder at that memory. "I can tell you're a bright girl—you obviously never ate her cooking because you're still alive and don't have three eyes and twelve fingers."

She didn't appear to be visibly phased by the dig. It used to be that he could either make her laugh, or get angry enough to chase him when he insulted Jackie. He knew it was a bit of a low blow—Jackie wasn't here to insult him back. He'd like to think she had seven years to insult him—but he knew Jackie hadn't mentioned him to Violet once. Apparently, to her, he was best forgotten.

Finishing off the rest of the tea, he contemplated another cup. She didn't appear to want any more, and he could certainly drag this out a bit longer if he had a few more. It wasn't like they actually had talks any more. "Alright, you're at an age where you don't want anyone to make a fuss. But you haven't talked to her—live—in a long time. You could have at least PRETENDED that you wanted to talk to her."

The girl sighed, pushing the cup away from her. "It takes a lot of effort to pretend."

"Sometimes, yeah." That he knew from years of having to. "Vi, come on. We're stuck here for a few days, at least. So there's no where we can go running off to where you can distract me by getting yourself into trouble. I still don't know what I'm going to do about the ship, so you might as well just tell me what's on your mind."

Hunching over even further, she tried to shrink behind the edge of the table. He'd tell her to sit up and all kinds of things about posture that he'd never subscribed to himself, but she'd probably either ?call him? on itscoff at the hypocrisy, or just march right off. Biting her lip, she examined her dirty fingernails, thinking, but trying not to.. He knew that look—he often wore it himself. So he let her go. They had all the time in the world to wait.

He could see her twisting the bottom of her t-shirt with one hand, a nervous habit she'd picked up within the last year or so. If his jacket wasn't in reach for her to scrunch and ball up, it'd be some article of her own clothing. "It's just--"

With a hum the emergency lights in the room flickered off and they were left in total darkness. His instinct was to put down the cup and start a dead run for the control room, but he forced himself to remain where he was. "Go on," he said much more calmly than he felt.

She was shifting uncomfortably. He knew she didn't like the dark—she refused to sleep in it, and if they ever got caught in a situation, he knew he'd better just get the sonic screwdriver and get some light going before she got upset. It had something to do with that thing that had brought her here, but he'd never delved into it further—she'd never seemed ready to talk about it. Of course, if Jackie was right, he should have been confronting these things head-on to begin with—sort of like the way he dealt with the universe. "It's just… sometimes…" she took in a deep breath. "Not sometimes—all the time--"

The ship pitched again. Hot tea spilled up his arm as he went flying into the table. He could hear her chair sliding backwards and colliding with the wall. It took another few seconds, but all the falling kitchen items settled and the table stopped sliding.

Standing up, he shook the liquid off of his sleeve. "Everybody alright?" He personally could have done without the tea burns—painful reminder of an old companion, you see. And the edge of the table hitting him in the gut.

"No," was the choked response.

Whipping out the sonic screwdriver, he saw exactly what the problem was, as soon as it lit up. "Ouch," he sympathized, thenpulling pulled the table away from her chest. She'd been slightly crushed between the table and the wall, her chair tipped precariously. The wooden chair hit the ground and wobbled, the legs snapping off, causing her bottom to connect with the floor a moment later. "Ouch again."

Brushing away bits of broken teacup, she grabbed onto his trouser leg and pulled herself upright.

He brushed bits of debris off of her nightclothes. Probably should send her to get dressed, he supposed. Of course, at this point—did it matter, much? It wasn't like they were walking out into public any time soon. Kid might as well be comfortable. "Ok. So I might have mucked things up just teeny, tiny, insignificantly small amount more than I thought I did."

Nothing. No confirmation that yes, he was an idiot for meddling with things that'd been working perfectly fine to begin with. In the past, she'd have had a fun time all day with this—the Doctor breaking everything. Even Rose would have had a few playful digs. He missed having someone to question him—missed having someone to fight with.

The emergency power flickered back up, and the girl sighed. "Lets just fix it," Violet suggested, cutting off any further wallowing.

There was something so business about her voice—she was glad this problem was giving her a chance to wiggle out of telling him what was wrong. She was far too young to start with some of his bad habits. Alright. Jackie had won the battle, but she hadn't won the war. "First thing's first. _I_ find out where we've ended up now. _You_ need to put some clothes on. Then I want the sleeping bag out of the control room. I don't care where you put it—just not in there. I don't need anything else getting loose and getting in the way if we jump again." And she just wasn't sleeping in the control room tonight. But that was a battle for another time.

Getting rid of the wet jacket, he rolled up his shirtsleeves as he came into the control room. Not bothering with the external sensors, he took a look at the displays.

Oh yeah. That was NOT good. Still Earth, still the same orbit, but this time he had Pangaea, the super-continent and late 24th century space cruisers. This was coupled with the fact that the sun was bulging and enormous, barely being held back from a supernova. The cruisers didn't seem to notice either thing that was amiss (coupled with the fact they should have burnt up by now), so the good news was that the history of the universe wasn't fracturing.

The bad news was—they were in three times at once and no place at all. No wonder the TARDIS was short on power—it was probably taking everything she had to keep the inside of the ship in the same place at once.

Dread set in as the console began to flicker. What had happened the last time they'd lost emergency power was still fresh in his mind. If the TARDIS jumped one more time, they'd be in four times at once and probably disintegrate.

TBC…


	3. Chapter 3

Standard disclaimers. Unbeta'd. I gave Krypto a chance to save me from myself, but he'd rather dink with iTunes 7, so, you can send all email about typos, missing words (my favorite bad habit) and stuff that just doesn't make sense to him.

XYZ

Neither Here Nor There

Chapter 3

XYZ

The thing was…Violet was having a difficult time being surprised any more. Sure, things happened out of the clear blue. Stuff that even someone like the Doctor couldn't see coming. But she expected it. It was… expecting the unexpected. It would happen, and suddenly all the stuff before it would make sense. Like another piece in the puzzle.

This… this was officially surprising. She'd have to mark the day in her diary.

In fact, it was so surprising she'd stopped in the doorway to the control room, looking at the pile of cabling and parts on the grill. The Doctor's head poked up through the open hole in the floor, and a small metal box came flying out, onto the stack. The control column was dark and unmoving.

Her jaw flapped twice as she blinked rapidly. "You killed her."

The Doctor's head popped out of the grill. "I saved her. And us. We'd have probably disintegrated if we'd have jumped one more time. So I did the only thing I could think of—I disabled the controls."

She leaned against the doorframe, head resting against her forearm. "A phone call isn't worth this."

The Doctor looked her in the eye, dead serious. "Yes it is."

"Worth getting stuck in the Vortex? Where we'll proceed to rot and die?"

Lifting himself out of the hole, the Doctor contemplated his stack of removed parts. It looked like some kind of dark and grotesque tentacle monster and smelled faintly of oil and burning. "We're not going to be stuck in the Vortex." It certainly was a pessimist attitude, one he expected from her, but there was no sarcasm—she was serious.

He'd been noticing it for a while, all the joy gone right out of everything. The universe, exploring, solving problems, helping people…all dried right up. Her books seemed to be of more interest to her than things outside the ship. Of course, he'd seen this before—usually right before they left him. Something settled in the pit of his stomach—he knew she'd leave one day, but...

Well, that just wasn't going to happen. She was ten. He wasn't going to drop her off on some happy world with meadows and pony people, bye, see ya later, have a nice life. That was something she had absolutely no choice in, at the moment, so it was time to find an alternate solution to her restlessness. "Besides, even if we did get stuck in the Vortex, we can live for…oh, four or five years on what we have in the ship. And by then you'll be bigger, juicier. I'm not above cannibalism, you know. _I_ figure I have, oh, a good ten years before I have to worry about getting out of this."

She walked past him silently, grabbing the sleeping bag. Not bothering to roll it up, she dragged it behind her to parts unknown. Come on. The cannibalism bit was classic. Usually a bit of cannibalism or talk of deranged clowns would get a rise out of anyone. Except for once, when Ace glared at him in pained seriousness and informed him that clowns would never eat other clowns—they just taste funny.

Maybe it was just that women were complicated, foreign creatures. Rose was always impressed with what he showed her of the universe. She was seldom impressed with him, personally. She'd ask him if he thought he was clever or funny, or if he was meant to be amusing, and he'd almost blush. Even the previous him had been reduced to red ears once or twice when she took the wind out of his sails. It was probably one of the things he loved most about her—her ability to make him feel two inches tall.

And it wasn't just human women—oh no. He and Romana had gotten along splendidly for quite some time. Then she regenerated, and they got along just as well (if not better), which was the problem in itself. Things just got… weird. Too familiar. Like something else should have been happening.

Things were getting strange with Violet. Things were uncomfortable, and he knew she'd leave if she had anywhere else to go in this universe. He was supposed to be treating her some other way completely, and he had no idea what it was. Jackie seemed to know, and had pretty much told him, but blimey, this was going to be tough.

And damn Jackie Tyler, another woman in a long list of complicated women. He knew all the reasons why she hated him, then there were times when she almost acted like she didn't hope he'd rot in the ninth level of Dante's inferno… when she did things that could be misconstrued as actually caring (if you squinted and looked at it sideways), like taking care of him after his regeneration… well, did she hate him or not? Hating a person or not. That wasn't too much to ask someone to make up their mind on.

"What?"

The Doctor looked up from his pile of parts. "Huh?" He'd hopped out and was sitting on the grate, his legs dangling in the hole, and had kind of just stopped there. Violet was on the other side, waiting for him to do something. "Oh. Yeah. I was waiting for you." Not really, but it was a convenient falsehood.

He spread a hand out towards the pile on the other side of the gap. "So, maybe I over-pulled. But the lights started flickering, and I figured it was that or meet an untimely demise. So all we have to do is figure out why we're in three times at once, and pull ourselves together again. And get the rest of the way out of the Vortex."

"And put the control column back together again."

Getting one leg under him, he got up. "Yeah, there is that. But you wanted to learn how a TARDIS works. Just think of how much an expert you'll be after this!"

She didn't seem quite so thrilled. Reaching into the cables, she pulled out a shiny box. "Yeah, but I don't think the toaster is part of the original design. I also don't think it's going to translate into repairing the other ship."

Might as well just get back to the harsh reality stuff. "Violet, they're not exactly growing any more TARDISes out there. If we can't repair what's broken, we're going to have to start replacing things, and we're going to have to start doing it with whatever's available. That's just the way it is. But that's not the point. The point is that we need to figure out what's wrong with THIS stuff, and figure out why its knocking us around time like a pinball, and then fix it by any means necessary. If that involves gutting a teddy bear and scavenging silverware out of the kitchen, I'm going to do it. Even if it looks ugly."

"You're right," she said tightly. He wished she'd just argue back. "We'll do what needs to be done. Like we always do." The last was breathy, almost whispered.

Walking all the way around the console, he picked her up before she could protest, sitting her on the oversized captains chair stuck to one of the railings. "Alright. I think we have a talk to finish."

She looked away. Oh yeah, this was going to be uncomfortable. "I think we should work on the ship."

Leaning on the rail right next to the chair, he looked at the mess he'd made. "That isn't going anywhere. And I don't think we're going anywhere. Vi, we can't keep going on like this. What do _you_ want to do?"

She paled, looking up at him as if it was unthinkable that her wants could factor into this. "About what?"

Might as well just get on with it and voice his suspicions. "You don't want to travel any more." The sucking breath she drew confirmed it. "So if you don't want to travel any more, what do you want to do?"

Biting her lips together, she thought about it, an overwhelming sadness lingering in her eyes. "I don't know," she whispered finally.

Then there was that terminable silence. The silence that seemed to fill up their days lately. Except there was no comforting hum from the ship to fill the space between them. He let it linger.

She scrunched the cuffs of her long sleeve t-shirt in her hands, pulling the sleeves tight as she inched more and more of it into her grasp. It was a black shirt with the logo of some band neither of them had ever heard of. Eventually she began rubbing a cloth-covered knuckle under her lower lip. "I just don't…I—I don't have anywhere to go."

"We could find some place." He'd stopped traveling for periods of time before. If she needed to stop—he'd do that for her. "Unless I'm part of the problem." He could find someone for her to stay with… he supposed. But he hated letter her out of his sight. He couldn't even think of what would happen if the wrong people (or creatures) discovered who or what she was. "Settle for a bit. You can go to a real school."

He felt bad for her. She was starting to rock slightly, and while this might be necessary, it was very difficult for her. "I wasn't good at school. I—I don't understand teachers. They say things, but they mean something else. Not with the work, with everything else. The schoolwork is ok here. Going out there is ok. It's just… the same. Every time. The problems are different, but the formula's the same." She looked up at him, wondering if she was making any sense. "I just… I don't know. I—I—everything…" Her eyes clenched shut. "I don't see anything. Anywhere. For me."

The breath caught in the Doctor's chest. How long had she been living with this? She went stiff and uncomfortable when he hugged her, but she didn't pull away. "You're not supposed to. It's not because there isn't anything for you. It's because there's everything for you. Whatever you want to do. You don't have to travel. You can settle anywhere you want, do anything you want. And I'll help you." Did she feel like he was forcing this life on her?

Relaxing a little, the girl didn't hug him back, but she did put her head on his shoulder. How he wished they had more of these moments. He used to hug her every night before bed, and then tuck her in. Then she didn't want it any more. Perhaps this was why parents did those things that embarrassed their children—they might not want to be kissed by mom in public, or their parents to wave hello when they're out with their friends—but children needed it.

Her breathing grew more controlled—less ragged like she was crying to control crying. Actually—he'd never seen her cry. Bottling things up was a trait of their people—possibly one of the worst. "I don't think I'd be very good at…not traveling. And I'm not very good at it, either."

Pulling her away from him, the Doctor looked into her eyes. "Don't ever say that. You might get yourself into more scrapes than I can count, but you've gotten me out of just as many. In fact, I think you're way better than you should be at thinking your way out of trouble. It means I get you into too much trouble."

Any number of his other selves would have never let someone her age on the ship, much less OUT of the ship, and into danger. Either he was grossly negligent, or there was something else more to this. So far, he'd not managed to figure it out. "I think what we need, first of all, is a change of pace. Maybe a little bit of a break—there're all kinds of holes in your education that aren't going to be filled by books. Nothing like getting out there and seeing."

"We'll still manage to find trouble," she pointed out dully.

He shook his head. "Noooo… I'll bring my magical anti-trouble talisman with me." She didn't believe him—or even the sentiment. The disbelief was curled around her nose in the barely hidden sneer. "I'll promise you that we won't go looking for trouble. How does that sound?"

Somehow her shoulders managed to slump further towards the floor. "I believe you. But… it'll find us. And…I wasn't ever good at school and with people and stuff. That's why I can't imagine being in one place. But… I know trouble will find me."

Letting go of her, the Doctor took a step back. That was another thing that must be a difficult thing for someone so little to live with. "Maybe it's genetic." Rubbing the back of her head affectionately, he thought about it. Her once-smooth hair was growing in wild again—maybe he'd let her get it straightened one more time, even though it made her look way too much like her mother for his own personal comfort. She'd seemed to like it like that.

There had to be some Podunk out there in the universe where trouble wouldn't find them for at least a few weeks. All he asked for was some conspiracy-free, mystery-free, explosion-free zone where evil wasn't lurking around some random corner. And if there was…he'd find it. "Alright. You tell me. If you could go anywhere at all… do anything at all. And don't be afraid to think of something impossible. What would you do?" He knew what she was going to say before she said it—but he had to ask.

"I'd go home, to mum," she whispered, her tiny voice cracking. Her eyes were gleaming, but she didn't spill any tears. "Even for just a day."

He'd never have ever, EVER said this before… but she needed to cry. It was an overly human display, not all that popular among his people, but she needed the release, he could tell. "I would too." And that was the truth. For a day, even an hour… he'd risk more than getting stuck the way they were now. "And the first thing I'd do is tell her how good of a job she did with you."

Violet looked shocked, like she couldn't believe that she wasn't a burden.

Smiling, he ruffled her hair. "That's the problem with being a melodrama artist. You think you're much worse—and worse off than you are." Sure, she had a lot of things in her young life that no one should, but wallowing in it hadn't helped the girl one iota so far. "We'll figure out what we're doing after we're out of this. It'll give us time to think about it. So, you can get under the base, since you're small, flexible and expendable, and see if anything looks amiss, and I'll try to work out how to get us back together again. Does that sound like a plan that you can get behind?"

Shrugging, she hopped off the chair. "I guess so. Like I have a choice."

It lacked her sarcastic edge, but it was a start. "That's the spirit! Doom and gloom for everyone!" He slapped a spanner into her head, then turned around and clamored over the pile of cables and parts, sliding down the back end and into the hole.

She followed him in, and he pulled another hatch free. The column went down another few feet after that. "Ignore the thing that looks like an alarm clock. Well, ok, it is an alarm clock. But the locational time regulator never worked to begin with. The wind-up is an improvement."

Shaking her head in disgust, Violet ducked into the smaller hatch, getting under the sub-floor. "Everything's OK down here. Nothing melted or burnt, except that. Eww. Sorry."

The Doctor was handed a rather old, extremely dusty and slightly petrified grilled cheese sandwich that was missing a single bite. It had probably fallen during one of their rougher landings. "Somehow I don't think THAT is the problem. Either way, new rule—no eating in the control room."

Before ducking back into the hole, she grabbed the sonic screwdriver. With it in one hand and the spanner in the other, she dove into the small hole until only her rubber-soled Mary Janes were sticking out.

Digging through another soda box full of tools, the Doctor set about the task of testing components. Deciding it was best to begin right where the problem started, he climbed up to his favorite bundle of cables, which were now dangling, connected to the ceiling and nothing else. "That can't be right," he muttered as he tested another cable. "That can't be right at all." But he got the same reading from all of them. He'd been testing to see if they would draw current—apparently they still were.

On a weird hunch, he tested the power relay to the phone—it was also still drawing power from somewhere. Picking up the handset, he heard it—not the dead silence that should have been met with an unconnected phone, but a crackling, like a bad line connection. The connection had dropped when all this had started. He'd heard it. "Hello?"

No answer.

Blowing into the phone, he heard the noise in the earpiece. It wasn't his imagination. The phone was live.

XYZ

Rose tried to tip-toe in from the garage. Her mum was probably sleeping, and her mother would just make a fuss. She hadn't bothered to clean up after she was done with her 'business' for work—she just wanted to get home and go to bed. Of course, coming home a disgusting mess would just cause her mother to go into a tirade about the evils of Torchwood. While normally Rose was inclined to agree, she was just too tired to deal with it.

If she made it into the shower, that'd be a boon. Most likely she'd collapse onto the bed, never bothering to crawl under the covers. The duvet would probably need to be burned tomorrow, or she'd find herself cemented to it. She'd be lucky to make it upstairs without trailing alien slime up with her, which'd be a whole other thing for her mother to get on to her about.

Lights flickered from the foyer, reds and blues and greens from the Christmas tree. She ignored the twinge of guilt that she and Pete had been forced to leave on Christmas Eve to deal with something huge, alien and slimy.

It was impossible to ignore once she got to the top of the steps and heard the snuffling from her parents' bedroom. Mum had been upset about them leaving, but she wasn't the type to be easily reduced to tears. Something had happened.

Knocking, Rose let herself in. "Hey, I'm home. Dad's limping his jeep home. I told him to call for a tow, but he's trying to be manly about it." Without asking what was wrong, she shed her disgusting coat and sat next to her mother on the bed, waiting for Jackie to tell her what was wrong.

Jackie rubbed her nose with a tissue, her eyes red. "The phone rang a couple of hours ago. It was them. Violet… didn't even want to talk to me."

Closing her eyes, Rose sighed. She was unsure as to whether she put an arm around her mum, she wanted to, but there was the whole slime factor to consider. "He says she's been moody," or at least that's what she'd gotten out of the last email she'd been sent.

Answering the 'slime or comfort' question, Jackie put her head on Rose's fairly yuck-free shoulder. "Rose, when you were out there, with him…I was so afraid. Every day I'd wake up and wonder where you were, what you were doing. If you were safe. You never were. I'd tell myself that the Doctor had promised, and that's how I'd get through the day. And when you'd come home, you'd tell me your funny little stories about aliens with skin problems and China in second century, and I'd listen, and I'd believe you. But I never did, deep down. You were avoiding all the dangerous parts. You never did tell me the dangerous parts."

Rose looked away, uncomfortably. "She's as safe as she can be, given the way things are. The Doctor wouldn't ever let anything happen to her, if he could help it. He never let anything happen to me, did he?"

Blowing her nose, Jackie told Rose about the plant people and the mushroom zombies…in at least as much detail as she remembered from the Doctor's accounting. "Was it always like that?"

Stomach twisted into knots, Rose couldn't remember the last time her insides had hurt more. "It was." But what would that do to a ten year old? She had to remind herself—there'd been no choice at the time. She'd had to keep Violet safe. But she'd chosen that life with the Doctor. Violet…she had been chosen for it. It stilled her heart to think of the things her daughter was meant to suffer.

Jackie told her about Violet not sleeping and not eating, among other changes, and exactly how she'd given the Doctor just the kind of kick in the pants that he probably needed.

She squeezed her mum. "Good for you. That's my mum. Never letting him get away with anything." Smiling, Rose brushed tears away from her own eyes. "Maybe he'll get it working again. A little Christmas miracle kind of thing. Maybe I'll get to talk to her." But Rose was unsure. He'd been working on this for so long.

Handing Rose the cordless phone from the night stand, Jackie gestured for her to try it. "It cut out. I had a dial tone for a few minutes, even tired to call Pete's mobile, but it dumped straight to the message box… and then it locked up. Not like all those times when he was tryin' to get it working, either."

Rose pressed the talk button. Instead of a droning tone, she got a weird crackling noise. "Hello?"

TBC…


	4. Chapter 4

Standard disclaimers apply. Thanks to Krypto who signed off on this chapter. Of course, you'd have understood it better if you'd have read the last one. Moo.

XYZ

Neither Here Nor There

Chapter 4

XYZ

There was a whisking sound like someone blowing into the phone on the other end. "Hello?" Rose called out again, a bit louder. "Something's wrong," she told her mum. Turning the phone off, she waited a few seconds, and then hit the 'talk' button again. Still with the static. "Doctor? Is anybody there?"

The line crackled again and she ran down the hall, to her bedroom, picking up the phone, dragging the base like an uncooperative dog off the night stand by the cord. "Hello?" It was still the same noise, though—interference like a bad mobile connection.

Pulling her mobile out of her pocket, she hit the memory option for home. Noise in one ear, she was shocked when she heard ringing in another. "Oh, this can't be good." She had no idea what it meant, but it wasn't good.

The home number rang seven times then the answering machine picked up down stairs. Grabbing her mother's phone from where it had been tossed on the bed, she left hers off the hook and dashed down stairs. "Hello?" she said after the message played. But she didn't hear her voice echoed on the machine. "Is there anybody there?"

Demonic possession of the phone lines seemed like a decent explanation. This had NEVER happened with any of the Doctor's previous attempts—even when the lines would lock up for hours. Something else was in play here.

"Phones that aren't hooked up to anything aren't supposed to work," she heard faintly in the background, on the answering machine speakers—but not her mobile, which was currently dialed into the answering machine. "I mean really—look. Freestanding unit. No power…"

Getting closer, she put down her mum's phone and stuck an ear to the answering machine. "Does that mean the time-splits are happening in the ship now, too?" It was so faint she could barely make it out—Violet.

The front door of the house opened, creaking on its hinges. Why was the door so NOISY? Pete's boots on the hard floor echoed through the space. She began waving an arm at him to be quiet.

"…Not possible. Internal systems are powered down. There has to be an external power source."

She was concentrating so intently, in her effort to pick out their words from static, she almost jumped out of her skin when Pete leaned over her shoulder, trying to figure out what was going on.

There was a long lull in the conversation… maybe they'd lost the signal, or whatever was bringing their voices over. She almost turned to her dad to explain what had happened, but then she heard something that stopped her heart. "Then we didn't do this. Someone else did." Violet's voice was so cool and logical…distant. More distant than a universe away, if that was possible.

The answering machine beeped loud and clear to indicate the two-minute message length was up, and Rose did jump at that.

Then the weirdest part of the whole ordeal happened. She heard very clearly the Doctor's voice asking, "what was that noise?" then the answering machine clicked off.

Frantically she ended the call on her cell and tried to reconnect it, but the line rang busy. The answering service should have picked up in those circumstances, but it didn't.

Slowly, she lifted her mum's phone to her ear. The line was dead. The same phone number. The same line. Turning to Pete, she didn't bother with the long explanation of events. "I don't know what's happening, but I have a bad feeling Torchwood is involved."

XYZ

"What was that noise?" The Doctor's attention snapped back to the phone. But when he picked it up again, it was dead—for real this time. "I heard it beep. Like…"

Violet nodded. "Like an answering box cutting you off when you talk too much."

Oh this was just too weird. If he didn't know better, he'd think the ship was haunted with that sort of thing happening. "Tactic change. Lets check and see what still has power. Then we can start trying to figure out where it's pulling the power from, then cut it off. I don't like being a pawn."

Nodding, Violet took the device for testing power levels out of his hand and scrambled back down the hole. For curiosities sake, he began turning on monitors that he was sure had no power running to them. They all lit up. Just for the sake of argument—he yanked the connectors for power and data from the console, letting them dangle from the monitors lifelessly. They were still displaying numbers. Actually—these numbers were his readings from before the experiment. It could just be holding on to old data, or they might really be having time anomalies within the ship.

This wasn't very good. The nature of the TARDIS should have shielded them from any temporal strangeness going on outside the ship, or even in relation to the ship's location throughout time and space.

Hands on his hips, the Doctor contemplated the situation. Depriving the ship entirely of power long enough for her to discharge what she had left and effectively 'reboot' the system would have certainly worked toward convincing the time locators to pull the ship into one time and place. But if they were receiving power now because of a time anomaly within the ship….

Ok, so he wasn't quite sure how he was going to get out of this one.

When Violet came crawling out of the hole a few minutes later, she looked like she'd been wallowing in a grease pit. Her face and hair were streaked with dust and oil, hands caked with grime and there was a hole in the arm of her shirt. "Two things. First, it's disgusting down there. Try vacuuming once every couple hundred years." She was a bit out of breath, and there wasn't any sarcasm in the statement—it was pure fact—but it was the first hint of her old self that he'd seen in months. "Second, I've been thinking. This isn't just spatially oriented. We've been getting bounced around in time every time you try to connect through the void—but it's when you try to connect through the void. It's something on that side."

She'd been waving the sonic screwdriver at him the whole time she'd been talking. Finally he reached out and snatched it from her—she was making him dizzy with how she was absently swinging it around. "First of all, I don't fit down there and the last person who did left this ship, oh, seven hundred and twenty years ago. Second of all—I concur. Question is… what do we do about it?" He might as well let her work this one out. She'd already started in on it, and some of the life seemed to be returning to her.

Violet shrugged, rubbing her dirty forehead. This was finally a problem she could wrap her mind around. She'd complained earlier that lately everything had been 'different numbers, the same formula' and it was wearing on her. He definitely could tell that this one was different numbers, different formula. "We can't shut it off. I guess that leaves trying to reconnect it all the way, then sever it. Of course, we could also blow ourselves up doing that, and then mum would be angry with us."

The Doctor nodded. "That, and Jackie would find some way to resurrect my essence out of the void just so she could kill me again. So, no blowing ourselves up. Glad that we've worked that out and we're in agreement on that one."

Grabbing his 'favorite' bundle of cables dangling from the ceiling, he kicked open the access panel on the column. "So, we hook this back up, THEN power the control column. See where that gets us."

XYZ

Mickey had already been at home, bathed, was scolded thoroughly by his grandmother for coming and going at all hours of the night and day—and on Christmas, of all times, and had passed out on the sofa, a box of cereal under his arm. When his phone began vibrating on the lamp table, he almost managed to ignore it. Almost.

Mostly he had a reaction reserved for alarm clocks—he reached over in his sleep to do anything to make it stop. Pressing the answer button, he didn't raise it to his ear until he heard someone hollering for him on the other end. "Yeah?" he grumbled quietly. Didn't work know he'd just vanquished a slime monster, and he needed a nap?

"Mickey, I need you here, now." The intense calm in Rose's voice woke him up immediately. A person only talked like that when they were trying to keep it together.

Sitting up, he dropped the box spilling chocolate puffballs on the carpet. "What's up?"

"Bring your computer, bring Jake if he's still awake, and get over here. Now." He heard a beep, and he knew he'd just been hung up on.

Calling out to his gran that he had to go back out for work, he winced at her harsh words, threw on a shirt, grabbed his jacket and bag then headed out. Some things never changed—Rose Tyler called and he came running.

XYZ

The cellar was chilly and damp and smelled like rotting leaves, must and earth—which was a little disturbing considering it was early winter. Mickey's laptop was sitting on top of an old wooden crate that had been in the house when Pete had bought it; no one knew or cared what was inside.

Well, Rose thought as she stared over Mickey's shoulder at the schematic, Violet had cared. She'd insisted that there had to be pirate treasure, fairy dust, the crown jewels and/or magical toys that had been locked in the crate (and the others like it) for a hundred years, and wanted to be free.

Whenever the girl tried to sneak off to the basement to have a look, Rose would drag her back upstairs by the ear, telling her not to be daft, if the toys were magical they'd get themselves out of the crates. There was way too much junk for her to get hurt on down here, so it had been strictly off limits—like that had ever stopped Violet.

That girl had been the reigning champion of scrapes and bruises—falling from trees, tripping over the carpet and getting the mother of all brush burns on her forehead…getting stuck in the gap between the last cellar step and the stone floor…

It seemed ridiculous now, trying to protect her from sharp and splintery objects when she was with the Doctor. They had very little idea what was happening right now, but things like time anomalies _inside_ the TARDIS did not seem all that healthy, and a trifle more pressing than a rusty nail sticking out of a crate.

As it was, they'd made haste in getting started on diagnosing the problem. She'd showered as quickly as possible (mum had gotten on her about the trailing slime through the house thing), had dressed in something field ready—entirely black and warm, and had come down to see Jake and Mickey already unpacking while Pete overrode his own security protocols on the communication filters. This really was destined to be the night without end.

Pete looked over his shoulder from the box where the telephone lines entered the house. None of the other lines and numbers were locked, just the personal number they only gave to friends—the one Pete had filtered a few months ago. "I don't want to take this off if we don't have to. But I unlocked the security a bit—see if you can trace the signal interference now."

Mickey began typing and Rose leaned forward still further. When she shifted to keep her balance, she bumped into Jake. "Sorry," she muttered.

He didn't respond, he just continued to stare stoically over Mickey's other shoulder. He'd brought some additional equipment and software—a bit of 'after market' purchasing that wasn't tagged and cataloged by Torchwood—he didn't trust his employer either.

After setting everything up, he'd told Mickey that this was his gig, busting into satellites. Mostly the slightly older man was cross with the whole lot of them for dragging him out of a sound sleep next to a naked girl. Life couldn't be any worse than that—getting your Christmas present early, then having to leave it at home while you were dragged kicking and screaming to grandma's house.

"God. This is SO slow," Rose grumbled as lines of code scrolled by on the left and the graphical representation of the location of the satellites lit up hesitantly.

Mickey's head turned slowly and he glared up at her. "You're welcome to do this yourself." Turning back to his typing, he found a tower that looked out of place. The signal bounced from the satellite to it, and was being mixed or crossed with some other signal.

Jake pointed at the tower, making note of the numeric code associated with it, then pulled out his own computer and began looking up the owner. "If I didn't work for the Antichrist, I'd be at home, in bed right now," he grumbled.

Arms folded across her chest, Rose stood up straight and rolled her eyes. "They're not the Antichrist. They're just… slightly evil. Misguided, mostly." At least that's what she liked to think. For the most part—Torchwood still did good work. It was just this one subject that they had differing opinions on. To them, Violet was an investment that they were not seeing a return on.

Sitting on the cold, damp floor with the machine, Jake began typing as quickly as possible. "I'll just tell you this. She's a redhead, she's smoking, dangerously, lethally hot, and she's in my bed. Antichrist."

A process ran for a few seconds and Rose crouched next to him. She needed something to do—badly. At least her dad was working with his filter to allow the right signals out and keeping the wrong signals from getting in. Heck, she'd settle for something to break or blow up. Waiting and watching just wasn't working for her.

Jake looked at the lot of them, a tad disgusted. Not that he'd been called in for help—Pete and Mickey had saved his arse enough times that he'd go to much further lengths for the two of them. Rose…he'd met her years ago, when the Cybermen made their power play, then again when the Cybermen disappeared.

He didn't not like Rose. He didn't like her either. "Yes. Owned by a Torchwood dummy corp that we used a few years ago for some work with the Lipik mob. Do you think they're doing this to intercept the signal, since Pete's blocking it at the house?"

Rose shook her head. "Too simple. Huge amount of power and work involved just intercepting the signal. They could hack it anywhere else along the way."

Mickey lost the signal when it apparently went out into nowhere. It seemed that the mobile tower was all that they had. Closing the laptop, he told Pete to put the filters back the way they were. "So what're they doin' with this tower?"

Shrugging, Rose tried to piece everything together with what she'd overheard on the answering machine. "They're having some kind of trouble with the TARDIS, they seem to be in several places at once or something. They're not powering the ship, but it has power. The phone lines get tied up and let go here…"

Walking around the cellar, ever conscious of the low ceiling, she rubbed her temples, trying to think it all through. Talking it out helped. "If they're caught in some kind of time…thing, then we're caught—or at least the phone lines are caught too. For whatever reason... probably Violet, I've been stuck on the same timeline as the Doctor even with her gone. She IS the thread between the dimensions. If SHE is caught, then that's why we're seein' this. And if the tower is somehow involved, then our gracious employer is somehow managing to keep this thing going."

Sliding her hands down her cheeks, she turned around to look at the only people she trusted at Torchwood. "I know this has got to be the WORST Christmas in recorded history. I've been dragged out into the cold, I've been slimed on by things that didn't want to be reasoned with—which caused me to miss talking to my daughter, AND Torchwood is getting involved in things that don't concern it—namely Violet. I would like to start this sacred day off on a good note, however, and disable their little scheme."

Jake looked away, half not wanting to get involved. Girl. Naked. In his bed. The one that was warm and dry and as far away from 'emergency of the week' as he could get.

Pete buttoned his leather jacket with a sigh, probably preparing to go on a lengthy oration about how he was 'too old for this.'

Half a smile lifted at Mickey's cheek—he had a bit of pent up frustration towards his employer—namely he was tired of keeping the peace and playing the game when he knew they were up to something. "And how do you propose we do that, 'Lead Analyst Tyler?'"

She tugged the zip on her own leather jacket up to the top of the collar, causing it to dangle just under her chin. "Why, 'Field Engineer Smith,'" she grinned, a fiendish look in her eyes. "By any means necessary."

Packing up his stuff, Jake sighed. "Then I guess you're gunna want the explosives that're in my van." The things he let himself get dragged into. He owed Pete. Truth be told, he owed the Doctor too. He wasn't a brain inside a tin can, and his universe hadn't exploded. He'd give Rose Tyler this one.

Pete rubbed his bare hands together. "Well, now that that's settled." Turning up his collar, he gave a tight, professional smile. "First, coffee. Then: lets blow something up."

XYZ

"Phone's tied up again," Violet announced.

The Doctor didn't even look up from the mess of cables he was working with. He tried to find a pattern in the telephone disruptions, but so far hadn't managed to. "It's just going to keep doing that. It's not actually connecting to anything, though. So we'd better just get back to work on this."

Sighing, she let go of it, allowing the hand set to dangle from the springy cord like a failed bungee jumper. "I guess…give me converter. I can put that back together, or something."

Digging around in the sea of parts at his knees, the Doctor handed her a heavy cylindrical device. "Purple is ground," he informed her, going back to his own business.

The converter rolled right out of her hand and slammed directly into her foot the moment the phone rang. Hopping over to it, she grabbed the cord and picked up the handset dangling at the end then looked at the Doctor for help. "What do I do?"

He shrugged, wanting to tell her to ignore it, but knowing she never would. "Jiggle the cradle? See if it picks up?"

Doing so, she at least got it to stop ringing, which was a plus. It had an annoying squawk, and that'd have been murder to try and work through. "Anyone there?"

Something tinny and echoy came through. "You've reached the Tylers, leave a message." There was a beep, similar to the one that had startled them earlier. Then she heard it. "Phones that aren't hooked up to anything aren't supposed to work, I mean really—look. Freestanding unit. No power…"

A conversation they'd had hours ago. She thrust the phone in his general direction. "Doctor… it's for you." He didn't look up at her. "No. Really. You have to hear this."

Popping over on his knees then grabbing it, he listened, all the way up until the beep and then there was silence. "The time problem is getting worse." He hung up the phone, concentrating on all the variables. "We may have caused the anomaly in the ship."

"What?" the girl asked, a rush of panic squeezing out of her voice like water from a sponge.

He went back to his work, trying to speed things up. "When I stopped her from skipping. She was skipping because she didn't know what to do with the power she's pulling from… well, who knows where. It was like a pressure release valve. We were all over the place, and all over time, but now that same energy is being directed inwards."

Motioning with his chin for her to get back to work, he reattached the regulator completely and began searching for the converter Violet had just dropped. "This may sound a bit silly, under the circumstances, but time is of the essence."

TBC…


	5. Chapter 5

Standard disclaimers apply. Thanks ta krypto for spellink helpf. I r gewd spelerk.

Neither Here Nor There

Chapter 5

XYZ

The third time he failed to get the communications system working again, the Doctor stood up, stretching his legs and trying to think it through. Again. This was getting…pedantic. "Lets see. We started out with having no power. But we were having no power because we had TOO MUCH power and the TARDIS was trying to discharge it. Now we have all the power the ship isn't discharging, and I still can't get anything to work."

Violet ducked her head, which bobbed back and forth with the weight of the work lamp tucked round her hair out of one of the grates, checking the thick book that was opened on the edge. "Huh? Do we really need to do this again?" Flipping a page in the book with a dirty hand, she squinted at the circular fractal-based text. "Besides, I think you're going to have to check this. I'm following the schematics, but it's so…convoluted under here I could be doing this all wrong."

The Doctor resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Yes, this was killing her. She was usually good at figuring out complex systems, in addition to improvisation and other skills that had thus far kept them alive. But the ship—the damned ship she was obsessive-compulsive over. Instead of the usual kid toys and books, he should have gotten her a case of sani-wipes and hand sanitizers because she as just one-off of compulsive hand washing—she HAD to be, with as badly as this was bothering her.

Crouching next to the book, he did take a look. "That's fine. That's actually a nice bit of wiring there. A few of those things were add-ons, but it looks like you've streamlined them." He grinned maniacally. "Congratulations. You have a budding future as a hotrod mechanic ahead of you, if this whole lady of space and time thing doesn't work out."

She handed him extra parts (and did he ever know about extra parts! He was fairly certain that scooter waiting hidden in the library was NOT supposed to have as many extra bolts and washers as he'd somehow ended up with) then tucked her hair behind her ears with dirty hands. "Everybody needs something," she said distractedly. "If you're going to make modifications, you should document them."

He stood back up. "You moan like a professor I had back at the academy."

Back down in the belly of the beast, her voice was muffled when she replied, "that was just mean. I don't think it's too much to just…write down what you did."

Hands in pockets, the Doctor closed the book with his shoe. "Why? I know what I did."

Fishing around in the hole for all of her lost tools, Violet tried to turn the column back on. "Right. Which does me a lot of good. Ok. Time to rethink this…" she muttered, echoing his earlier thoughts. Rethinking's not so dumb now, is it, the Doctor wanted to declare. "I have power, but it's getting no power. And I find it very annoying that both of these things are true at the same time."

"And you can trade six Remtaran shingles for a canary and a magnifying glass, but only at high noon in the town square."

Violet made a face at the Doctor as she climbed out of the hole. Would it really be too much to ask that he stick with the problem at hand for a minute or three? Hands in his trouser pockets, he was staring up at the vaulted coral ceiling, not a bit of concern on his features. "And it hurts if you stick your finger all the way down your ear," she informed him, annoyed. "So what's that have to do with not being able to get out of the anomaly because we're CAUGHT in the anomaly?"

His eyebrows wiggled. "Or the price of kerosene in Sandusky. The thing is, we have no idea how long we've been in here."

The girl grabbed his wrist, prepared to tell him he was an idiot. However much time had passed…that was how much time had passed. But then she looked at his watch—two minutes after one. It had been hours upon hours since he'd come into the cargo bay and into the other TARDIS to tell her of their predicament—and that had been just after midnight. He'd disabled the ship and they'd put it back together since then. That had to have taken more than an hour.

No—she was the one that wasn't thinking this out. The distortion was now inside the ship. It's why there was power and no power all at once. Slapping one of the dead displays, it lit up anyway. GMT was listed as 11:49. Jiggling the phone around, she got the ugly digital display to function. Three twenty.

Blowing out a slow, steadying breath, she looked up at him. "So no matter what we do, we're not actually accomplishing anything at this point. Nothing we do is going to 'stick' while we're caught, and we can't do anything to uncatch ourselves. And even if we could—we'd have to pull the ship back into one place before it jumps again, otherwise we disintegrate anyway. By the way, the price of kerosene in Sandusky is relative to whether it runs through a shipping company based in St. Louis or based in Chicago."

Great—now he had her doing it. Why couldn't they just work on the problem in front of them? One thing at a time, that wasn't so much to ask for, was it? She worked awful hard to keep her mind on one thing at a time, the least he could do was be a good example.

Before she could bemoan that they really WOULD be stuck here (wherever the existential-esque 'here' was, at the moment), he wagged a finger at her. "Or Dayton. In almost a millennia, I've managed to always remember where I parked the TARDIS and never break down in the Vortex. I think we can manage one more go at not being forced to turn to cannibalism or clown poaching to survive."

XYZ

"Well, I guess it's a good night for it," Pete whispered as they inspected the place from the warm confines of Jake's van. "Christmas, minimal staff."

Rose looked away. That's how she'd broken into the other TARDIS years ago; she'd waited till a shift change on the holiday and had made her move. "Yeah. But we're coming up on daylight soon. How long?"

From the back, Mickey looked up from his machine. "Twilight at 7:11 and sunrise at 7:41."

Instinctively everyone pulled back the cuff of their coats and checked their watches. Pete tugged his sleeve back down and slid his hands into close-fitting leather gloves. "Right. That gives us just over an hour till twilight. We really can't let it go on much longer than that."

Sliding his laptop between the two captains chairs in the front seat, Jake pointed to the schematic of the building upon which the tower was perched. "These are the security checkpoints, where someone's bound to be posted. Mickey's going to work some magic with the camera feeds, but the system checks itself every ten minutes for interference, so you'd better just be hidden when he has to pull out of the system. It'll take him another minute or two to get back in, so don't go wandering about."

Pete nodded, taking the laptop from him to look at all the plans. "Here's the lifts—we'll need him to disable the security on these as well. No way in hell I'm climbing up forty-two flights."

Mickey typed, grunting in ascent to the request.

Pete pointed out to Rose the data center on the forty-first floor. "I'll hit this, get rid of data, you and Jake on the roof. Easier than disrupting the power in the basement—you only have to sever one line here. If you do this under the building you'll have to sever all of them."

Rose and Jake looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. "But it's the best way to cover our tracks," he pointed out.

Nodding, Rose concurred. "It won't be perfect—we'll be suspects number one, two, three and four, but at least we have plausible deniability on our side." Did she just say plausible deniability? Getting hip-deep in conspiracies wasn't how she thought her life would turn out the morning she'd left for what turned out to be her last day at Hendrick's.

In fact she was only thinking of the small pay raise that might be involved if she moved to another department, then maybe she could work up to a shift supervisor in a few years, get her own flat…but most likely, she'd concluded as she got off the bus that morning, she'd end up sticking with women's clothing and living with her mum or Mickey.

Jake closed the laptop. "Rose, you go with him, then. I'll be fine in the basement. If I run into trouble, Mickey can bail me out. The sooner you two get rid of data, the sooner we can blow this thing."

Nodding, she got her things together, wondering just how she was going to diffuse the situation with Torchwood after this.

Now look at her. She'd traveled in time and space, got stuck in another dimension for heaven sake, and now even with her traveling days over, her 'analyst' desk job involved hostage negotiation with slime creatures, putting down alien invasion attempts and sabotaging her own employer.

It was like she should have been toting a large silver and black thermos mug full of coffee with her—another day at the office, Rose thought as they approached the service entrance of the building, waiting just out of camera range for Mickey to give them the go-ahead.

XYZ

Getting in had been the easy part. They'd happened to get lucky with the shift change, which only meant getting past twice as many people in the rear of the building and no one else at all near the lifts.

"Too old for this…" Pete muttered as the metal box rose quietly toward the 41st floor.

Rose nudged him with her elbow. "Oh shut up. You love it. Or you'd have retired, or taken a consultant job, or gone back to business…" She'd thought about that a lot lately. Mostly she thought Pete just liked to complain that everyone was killing him, more than she thought he was actually bothered by some of the situations he'd found himself in.

Either way, these things somehow ended up being a bonding time for them, which happened to make about as much sense as anything else in their relationship—he was her dad and not her dad, and she'd been an adult before they'd even met. So, perhaps, having meaningful conversations while getting in and out of trouble was what passed for normal in a relationship between family members from different dimensions.

Her father tried not to smile, but he lost the battle eventually. "I'm too old for the all-nighters, at least."

Leaning her head against the lift wall, Rose resisted the urge to yawn. "Aren't we all. I'm having horrible flashbacks to back before Violet slept through the night. Only I have to concentrate and think and stuff." And 'sleeping through the night' for Violet had always only meant four uninterrupted hours of sleep. It was why they'd started the 'not allowed out of bed until the alarm goes off' rule as soon as she was old enough to understand. Even then it only ensured six hours of peace. Six hours sounded really good right about now…

Hitting the correct floor, they both stepped away from the door into the wings, hopefully keeping themselves from being easy targets, if they'd been wrong about the guards. There was a ding and the doors slid back. They waited. "Ok you're clear," Mickey muttered into their ear pieces. "You have four minutes before I have to pull out of the system again—make it count."

Torch in hand, Rose cut in front of Pete before he could try to do the noble thing and lead the way. She didn't know why, but she wanted—needed to take point on this one. Violet was in trouble, and if anyone was going to get her—and the Doctor—out of it, it was going to be her mum.

Or at least she hoped it'd be that way. They traded emails, which had been, for the last three years, all they could push through the void, but it just wasn't enough. She wanted that connection. And if helping Violet from a very long distance was all that she could manage… well, then it would have to be enough for Rose—for now.

"I'm here," she breathed into her mouthpiece, hand just above the metal fire door.

"Already open, babe. I'm just that good. One minute."

The data center was a maze of security. Mickey had already disabled the first door, but the second was still sealed, and they were running out of time. "Hurrying would be good…" Going back into the hall wasn't an option—Pete had already pointed out two cameras with no blind spots in the corridor.

Pete's chest was pressed against her back, he was trying to get as close to 'in the second door' as they could manage without actually being inside. On the other end, she could hear pecking. "It's open in…three, two, one…I'm out. See you in four minutes."

The signal cut off as they dove through the door and into the rows of servers. Staying low, Rose looked around in the dark for cameras, which would now be live. Pete was looking for the correct server. He'd built his fortune on technology (among other 'daft schemes' as Rose's mother put it), so this was really his area. Which meant Rose would have a bit of thumb-twiddling to do, once they got started. However—if they happened to encounter a werewolf in the server stacks, she was SO on top of it.

A few minutes later, her earpiece crackled to life again. They were both moving before Mickey even confirmed that the security cameras and infrared were once again scrambled with old information. Popping open a panel on a sever rack, Pete began connecting his hand-held computer. "Find a dummy terminal. Start searching these other machines and see if there's any other information we're missing."

Looking down the rows of severs and up at the stacks in each row, Rose contemplated telling him to forget it—they should just blow up the data center as well. However—if either of them were to have a chance of continuing to protect Violet, they needed that good old-fashioned 'plausible deniability' on their side so that they could stay with Torchwood. Their relationship was rocky with the institute since she'd packed Violet up in that other TARDIS (oh, were they still bitter about having a TARDIS under their noses and not even knowing it!) and sent her away.

They thought that having her under their guidance and control was the best way to ensure the security of the Empire of the Wolf, and she couldn't fault them for that—she knew how it must have looked. But Rose knew a Time Lord working for ANYONE would be a bad thing. She also knew they'd never understand that—so why bother trying to explain? It was actually more efficient to just skip straight to the part where they stopped Torchwood than it was to try and explain, put it beyond the shadow of a doubt that Rose was on to them, and then get herself, Pete, and anyone they saw as an accomplice tossed out on their ear.

Finding a counter with a bank of desktops, found one that was still on. Using a computer access code she'd lifted off of a senior member of Torchwood about a year ago (never knew when you'd need these things—the Doctor had always collected odds and ends in his pockets for rainy days, Rose now collected security information and blackmail material), she got in and began searching for the project ID and codename for their intelligence-gathering regarding Violet.

The first project ID she already knew of. But then she found two more. Going through the files, Rose felt something settle in the pit of her stomach. Had this Torchwood learned nothing, with the Cybermen and all? No. Obviously they hadn't—obviously they wouldn't be trying this if they'd seen the devastation wrought by the Daleks and the Cybermen in her home dimension.

Staying with the organization seemed more important than ever. "You've been made," Mickey said quickly, interrupting her thoughts. "Get out—Jake's set the charges and it's ready to go. But we're going to have to blow this thing before they find the explosives in the basement. They're on your floor, but I can probably talk you down."

Backing out of the file system as quickly as possible, Rose dashed through the server farm, helping Pete stash away the rest of his equipment as they moved. "Mickey, tell Jake to blow it, even if we're not out. This is too important."

Mickey lead them through the data center to an executive suite which had its own lift. she didn't know if it was a Torchwood office, or just one for the building that happened to house the mobile tower that Torchwood was using for evil, instead of good. "Just get out," her friend urged. "No one gets left behind."

They made it into the lift just as someone entered the office behind them. They'd have company when they hit the ground floor, but she had a few seconds to explain. "They're trying to punch through the void. It started out as just trying to intercept our communications with the Doctor—but then they realized the energy exchange was two-way. They're trying to pull the TARDIS into this dimension. So blow it, Mickey."

Pete's face was stony. She knew he agreed—but really wasn't looking forward to what should happen if they didn't get out—or were caught.

Their efforts so far had left the ship—and her daughter—trapped in some kind of time…thing (she really did need to think up better words for these situations), and it sounded like it was pulling the ship apart. Who knew what would happen if this place had actually been manned—and they'd have realized they had a connection with the ship? What they were managing to accomplish on autopilot was enough.

"Will do. But I'm not giving up just yet, babe. I'm setting you down on the fifth floor, can't see any security there yet. As far as the sensors will be able to tell, the lift's continuing down to the lobby, so they'll be expecting it. Won't buy you much time, but it's something."

Pete nodded to Rose. Running for her life with her dad was…a unique experience. She cherished it as she cherished all those times running with the Doctor. The universes were a weird place. Throughout the course of thirty-one years she'd managed to have, at one point or another, everything she could have ever hoped for. There was just some kind of universal balancing act that said she couldn't have it all at once.

Making their way into another office, Pete cut in front of her on the way to the door. She wasn't going to just let her have this one, was he? The trying to protect her thing was sweet, but she was far too old for that now. "Thanks for your help," he muttered to Mickey. "But we have to go silent. If they're looking for us, then they're looking for our communications. If we're not out in…five minutes." He glanced at his watch. "Do it."

Creeping out into the hall, they attempted to move as swiftly and as silently as possible. It was lit only by the red glow of the exit sign over the fire escape, and there was that moment of complete blindness as they passed into the next corridor toward the public lifts. The flickering numbers illuminated this area as the floor numbers dinged by so loudly it echoed off the bare walls.

The echo was so loud she almost didn't hear it behind her—back in the shadow they'd passed through a moment earlier—the sound of a safety being quietly removed from a gun. Not only had they been made—they'd been found.

To Be Continued…


	6. Chapter 6

Standard disclaimers, yadda yadda. You know the drill.

XYZ

Neither Here Nor There

Chapter 6

XYZ

There was a ding and a shwunk as the lift door slid back, spilling a foreign light into the hall. Hoping Pete had heard what she'd heard, Rose spun around, lunging for the man with the gun. Hitting him in the chest, she turned sideways, putting herself out of the line of fire and grabbed his arm, knocking the weapon away.

The man's arm was around her neck a second later, lifting her feet off the ground. Red lights fired behind her eyes. She tried to catch him in the shins with her heels but kept missing and couldn't throw them if she couldn't get her feet on the ground.

The scarlet hue of the world turned black as cobalt fireworks faded in the night sky of her mind. This was not how things were supposed to work themselves out…

She heard a thud, and the force of whatever was happening caused her to whip around in the man's arm, but the grip loosened after that. Dropping to the floor next to the guard, Rose grabbed her throat, looking up at her dad who was hoisting a fire extinguisher through teary eyes. "A bit close, ya?"

Dropping the heavy red cylinder, Pete held out a hand. "Lets just get out of here." Reaching into the lift, he hit the button for the ground floor, then pulled his hand back out again, letting the doors close and the box descend without them. Grabbing Rose's hand, they made for the steps.

Pete glanced at his watch as they hit the second floor. "Two minutes."

Another half a flight after that, the cement stairs beneath their feet trembled violently—the explosions had been set off early.

XYZ

Mickey was out of the van and running towards the building the second he heard the boom. Glass on the lower floors burst outward; he simply shielded his face with a jacket-covered arm and continued forward. "What's going on in there?" he asked, breaking radio silence.

"I'm clear," Jake announced after a few moments. "Had to set it and go. Found an…alternate rout out, don't wait for me."

Stopping half way between the van and the building, Mickey watched the building shudder as fiery gas shot out of the lower floor of the building. "Everyone else?" he asked. No names—he knew better than that. But this had been kind of an impromptu plan, they hadn't decided upon any other ways to identify themselves. "What a out everyone else?" he asked again, hoping for something—anything from Rose and Pete.

Hearing sirens in the distance, he contemplated his options. He wasn't getting in there—not with the equipment he had now. It looked like the basement and lobby were still burning. And if he stayed here… he'd be caught. With a curse under his breath, he went back to the van in defeat. Pete and Rose were on their own.

…And if they didn't make it out, what then? It wasn't like they'd never lost people in the field. But it had never been one of them, none of the people he considered his connection to the 'real world.' Not just home, that dimension he'd left without ever looking back, but the few people here, like Jake, who knew the score; the things that went bump in the night, both from above, and from within Torchwood itself.

This was a stupid way to die, therefore they'd make it. There'd been some reason why they couldn't respond. How stupid had he been? He'd sent them to the fifth floor, letting them find their own way out. Mickey was sure he'd carry the guilt with him forever, if it came to that.

But Rose had the Doctor's luck for the impossible, he had to remind himself. If it could be done, she'd do it. And if not… then they'd had a hell of a run. They'd had a hell of a run in this world, fighting aliens and fighting the Man, and they'd kept Violet safe just a little longer. If he hadn't done that, what kind of substitute-uncle would that have made him?

Rose had told him to do it. That's what he'd have to remember. Anything that happened—it had been for Violet—including any sacrifices on Rose's part. She had told them to do it for Violet…so they did.

XYZ

They'd been staring at the control column for several minutes. The Doctor with hands on his hips, Violet with arms crossed over her chest. When the Doctor shifted slightly, crossing his arms as well, Violet's hands instantly went to her sides.

It was amusing, really—she'd do just about anything to just not be like him. She should just give in to her tendencies, like sidetracking, tinkering or even the behavioral quirks—it'd save everyone time, and it'd probably save her some money later on in life with therapy. Oh, she'd still need bucket loads of therapy, but at least they could skip the whole part about trying to not be something she was and possibly move straight on to the part where she sorted out the really lousy genetic hand she'd been dealt.

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "We could flush some of the spare rooms."

Taking a few steps closer to him, the girl thought it over. "What would that do?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. I just figured it's something we haven't done yet."

Sighing, she looked up at the reconnected wad of cables as they dangled silently in their place. "We also haven't set off explosions in the console room or jettisoned the other TARDIS, but those things wouldn't help anyways. Probably."

"Cynic," he jabbed playfully.

"Realist," she corrected. "One of us has to be." The last was muttered under her breath. "What good's doin' stuff, just for the sake of doing it?"

Grinning, the Doctor nudged her. "And what good's doing nothing, even when we know everything we do is counter-productive if we're stuck inside the anomaly? Absolutely nothing. Therefore--"

The ship lurched, quite possibly harder than they'd ever felt it lurch before. Both were thrown to the ground hard enough to make them see stars, and then thrown off the console level, onto another grated floor below.

Trying to get to his feet, the Doctor shouted over the rumbling of the ship. "We have to get back up there!" Who the hell knew what was happening now?

She was still moving, the internal stabilizers failing to keep them from being thrashed about still further. It was like trying to climb upward in an earthquake. The Doctor couldn't wait for Violet, he grabbed hold of the nearest hand rail and began pulling himself up the short spiral stair case.

Fortunately, from what he could tell, she was fighting the urge to flatten herself and duck for cover until the rumbling and trembling stopped, and was crawling her way towards him. She was almost to the top of the steps by the time he got to the console, where he was smacking one of the monitors, trying to figure out just how much trouble they were in now.

All three monitors in front of him were displaying the same information—he almost couldn't believe it. But it also meant they were in a whole new kind of trouble. "Crash course in piloting the TARDIS!" he shouted to Violet. She hadn't learned much more than the basics at this point—she could land it, if it were already on a pre-set course (and he was like…unconscious—he wasn't too keen on the thought of letting a ten-year-old pilot the last _functional_ TARDIS in existence).

This was going to be…difficult without the safeties that kept her from destroying the ship in place. "Grab hold of the space controls. Something's knocked us free and we have to get 'er back together again!"

The girl didn't just grab them, she clutched onto them for dear life, trying to steady herself, get some leverage, and control the various dials. "Which way am I going with this?"

Glancing up from his own flickering bank of wildly careening knobs and leavers, he made an educated guess. "Clockwise! I think!" The ship rocked again, and he almost lost his balance. She hesitated, but he waved her on. "It doesn't matter! Just pick something and stick with it!" Which, surprisingly, was also a metaphor for life.

"Oh…okay!" she shouted, continuing to turn the dial as quickly as possible.

The ship rumbled so badly his hands slid off the controls. She had to be coming apart now. "Come on… Just stay with us…"

In seeming reply, the ship buffeted again, tossing them both away from the console and into a wall. Or possibly the ceiling. It was hard to tell—the coral-like metal came up upon them hard and fast, and unconsciousness visited shortly thereafter.

Oh well. At least they wouldn't be awake for the part where the TARDIS was torn out of existence. That'd probably just be a right uncomfortable thing.

XYZ

Dawn was just coming through the fogged-over glass when the kitchen door tentatively unlocked. The room's sole occupant put down her mug, rushing over to the cause of the clatter. "You smell like smoke!" Jackie hollered as Mickey opened the door. So much for coming into the house quietly. "And you look like hell. You'd better not be bringing anything slimy or filthy into this house…"

The door swung closed behind him. Sighing, Mickey just hugged her. "Merry Christmas," he muttered, planting a kiss on her cheek.

Jake dragged himself through the door a minute later. "Just kill me." He also looked bone-tired and a bit…crisp. Throwing himself into a chair, he put his arms down on the wooden table, resting his soot-covered face on his scorched jacket sleeves.

Without any further explanation, Mickey went straight for the refrigerator, going through the motions of his morning routine. He'd stop by to pick up Rose, holler for her to hurry up then spend quality time with Pete's vast cereal collection. Not actually having the energy for food, he just took the bottle of milk out and sat at the table with it.

Jackie frowned then grabbed the kettle. "I'll put on some more water. You two look like you could use a cuppa. Problem with the phones cleared about half an hour ago."

Mickey stared at the bottle, trying to figure out if he had enough energy to actually unscrew it and lift it to his mouth. Never mind the part where Jackie asked him if he was raised by wolves and smacked him in the back of the head. "That's good. Means it worked. And nobody's been by here yet? Askin' after us?"

It was entirely possible that they might avoid getting hauled off to jail for the holiday—or worse—where Torchwood sent its detainees. They'd almost be better off confessing to the police their involvement straight away, in the hopes that the public attention might prevent them from 'disappearing.'

Putting the kettle on the stove, Jackie turned around, tugging the edges of her dressing gown around her tighter. "Not so much as a peep. Where's Pete and Rose?"

Jake dragged his head off the table and looked at Mickey. "They didn't want any help," he explained. "They told us to go on without them."

Making up his mind, Mickey used both hands to lift the milk jug as he drained the life out of it as quickly as possible. When it was empty, he slammed it on the table with a satisfied sigh. Surprisingly, Jackie didn't smack him upside the head.

The door swung open, forcing another cold breeze through the already-chilly room. "Ok, over the threshold…" Rose had one arm around Pete as she hopped through the doorway. "Alright. Over to the table…"

Out of breath, Rose waited until she was at the table and seated in a chair to complain. "I think I know how to get out of a car…"

Pete shot her a tight smile as he went for ice. "Then maybe you'd have liked to get in here on your own? Hmm?"

Jake kicked a chair to Rose, who slowly maneuvered her leg onto it. "Just kill me now, ya? It'd be easier."

On the verge of a fuss, Jackie gently tugged up the leg of Rose's black jeans. "Oh what have you done?" The cuff caught at her calf, so Jackie couldn't see much higher and the boot stopped right above Rose's ankle. What she did see, however, left a lot to be desired. The whole outside of her leg was purple, not with bruising, but some blood blister type thing, like the trauma of whatever had happened had caused the capillaries in her leg to just explode.

Looking away, Rose tried to minimize the situation. "It looks worse than it is. I'm sure it isn't broken."

Handing Rose the cold pack, Pete began untying her bootlace. "Soon as I pull this off, it's going to swell straight up, so don't even think about moving around until we call someone to look at it." Pulling it off, he winced in sympathy as he pealed back the sock. The rest of it didn't look any better—all purple and swelling faster than you could think about it. "That'll teach ya to tuck and roll."

A bitter, sarcastic smile spread across the woman's lips. "I'll remember that the next time I'm jumping out of a fifth story window, thanks."

Pete turned to his wife. "This one here just leaps out, feet first, into a dumpster. She'd a been fine if she wouldn't have gone stick-ankles first into a rotted melon."

The kettle whistled, which saved Rose from having to deal with her mother. They liked to lick their wounds before they came home, hopefully reducing the amount of fussing from one Jackie Tyler, but there hadn't been anywhere to go this morning.

Mickey rubbed one eye, yawning. "Looks like we're OK for now. Jacks says no one's been askin' after us yet."

Rose winced as Pete adjusted the squishy blue ice pack. They always had half a dozen on hand, they came in use in times like this and had been in near-daily use with Violet in the house. "I think we might have a quiet time until after the new year, at least. With everything running on minimal staff, it'll take 'em that long to figure out what happened. And by then… well, I'm tired of being on the defense."

Four heads turned in her direction.

Her eyes met each of theirs, one by one. "They're messin' with stuff that's beyond them. Trying to pull the TARDIS into this dimension… who the hell knows what else they're going to get." Everyone grew uncomfortable, remembering the ghost shifts and the invasion from the void. "And someone's got to tell them. They haveta know that there're people who aren't gunna stand for that and who're gunna stop them. And I want them to know just how close they came to ruining their 'investment' in Violet by nearly _killing_ her. If they fire me, so be it. But I think I'm still too valuable to them yet—we all are."

Pete nodded, squeezing her shoulder. Putting her hand on his, she silently thanked him for his approval. They were seriously putting their positions on the line with this one. If things got any more complicated, they'd either find themselves out on their ears, or staging a coup to overturn the power structure of the organization. Rose didn't want to be on top—but she'd do what she had to for this earth, and for Violet. By now they had to believe that—they had to take _that_ seriously about her, if nothing else.

To Be Concluded…


	7. Chapter 7

Standard Disclaimers Apply. Thanks to krypto for the beta. So, this is it. Two more stories and I'm done : ) Next time: Captain Jack (you may all rejoice)

XYZ

Neither Here Nor There

Epilogue

XYZ

The Doctor woke to the icy breeze whipping through the control room. "Ung…" Rubbing his forehead, he opened one eye. They were, strangely, still in one piece. Of course… if that was the case, why was he getting snowed on…inside the ship?

Opening both eyes to the harsh natural light flooding through the door (with the snow), he looked around. "Vi?" He'd love to take credit for not being dead, but this one had been left way too much to chance. Seriously. No more splitting the ship between times and places. His hearts couldn't take it. 

The girl's voice drifted in with the giant wet flakes. "It's snowing!"

Prodding the bruised and unfortunate knot on the back of his head, the Doctor meandered over to the door. They were in some wooded area, but he could hear traffic just beyond. Leaning against it, he watched Violet for a moment—relieved. She was… undamaged physically, and she was more like the girl he'd grown so fond of these last few years.

She was lying in the snow, flapping her arms and legs, making an angel. Her mouth was opened, tongue perched forward to catch the falling flakes. It was a completely different person on the ground, flailing about in just a t-shirt and jeans, than the one who'd been sleeping on the floor of the control room last night and he was glad. "Alright…that's enough!" he announced in a mildly stern tone. "Leavin' the door open, rolling around in the snow without a coat on…" Stepping outside, he pointed back into the ship. "Change of clothes, wash your face, hat, gloves, scarf, and by then I should know whether the natives intend to have us for dinner, or have us for dinner."

Stunned that he seemed so…serious, she got to her feet, soaking wet from the snow, and staggered back into the ship. 

Looking up at a grey sky framed by stickly and bare tree branches, the Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets, enjoying the moment. The air was cool and wet, tickling his senses. Taking it in, he sighed contentedly. He didn't know where or when they were—but he couldn't ask for a more perfect day.

He headed back inside to find out the where and when, and to make sure the girl actually got the dirt off of her face—washing up only counted when you were clean at the conclusion of it—which seemed to be lost upon her.

XYZ

Dragging a dark blue scarf behind her, Violet tried to keep track of the hat and gloves. The Doctor'd said she needed those things, not that she actually had to be wearing them. "NOW can we go out?" she begged, scrambling into the control room.

He had his trench coat on, but he didn't have a hat or gloves. She was just about to point out the injustice when he cracked a grin. "Nineteen eighty four. Chatham Dockyard in Medway's been closed after 400 years of service, British Telecomm is privatized and the Ethiopian famine begins."

The girl stopped at the top of the ramp, shoving the gloves into her pockets. "Cheery."

He leaned against the door, making no move to let her out. "Those things only work when actually WORN. We're in New York City…Central Park. Subway shooting a few days ago has got everyone talking and looking over their shoulders… Oh wait, you said cheery. Okay. Height of the Cabbage Patch Kid craze—ugly little toys that look slightly Slitheen—parents rioting at toy stores…" He stopped when he noticed her frowning at him. "Alright, that's not very happy either. Nineteen eighty four…Uhh… Ghost Busters is the big film, first woman-astronaut-spacewalk thingy…oh yeah, and it's Christmas Day. About nine in the morning." 

Stepping away from the door, he let her fly through like a bat out of hell. This had to mean that Christmas wasn't so awful any more, which meant that there was some magic left in it after all. 

XYZ

In the dark family room, Rose sat on the sofa, one leg propped up on pillows, trying not to laugh; every time she did, it jostled her magnificent sprain. It wasn't so much the sprain that was killing her, but the torn ligaments. The physician had said something about her being on crutches just shy of 'forever,' which had sounded really appealing. 

Her mum was hovering over the arm of the sofa, trying to get an ear near the phone. Finally Rose had to bat her away. "Slow down," she declared, doing her best not to crack up. "And then you did what with the horses?"

There was a pause—possibly the other party just catching a breath. "I fed the horses! And it was a sleigh ride! I got a scooter, and a Cabbage Patch Doll…they DO look like little baby Raxacoricofallapatorians! And books, I got books! We had turkey, and cake…"

Violet had slowed down her rapped-fire report of the day for all of about two seconds and promptly returned to shouting out the days events like she'd eaten that whole cake herself…in addition to an entire packet of chocolate-covered espresso beans. 

About twenty minutes later, she could hear the Doctor informing Violet that it was time for bed. There was the usual (at least for when Rose and Jackie used to put Violet to bed) bemoaning of fate, existence and a load of other things. 

Rose put her hand over the mouthpiece. "He's putting her to bed?" she questioned, not quite sure of what she was hearing. The Doctor had never really been about…rules with Violet. He hadn't let her run wild, of course (a wild Violet was a dangerous thing—both for the girl's own safety and the universe at large), but rules weren't exactly hard and fast with him. 

Jackie smiled, satisfied. "Glad he's listenin' to someone who knows what they're talking about."

A minute or so later, she heard the Doctor sigh on the other end. "We exchanged gifts after dinner—she's still wound up. I may need to sedate her."

Rose DID laugh at that. There was a reason 'normal' people did that early in the morning—so the kids had the entire day to burn the excitement off. "Exchange? So what'd she give you?"

He chuckled. "A TALKING neon green Christmas tree tie. Must have snuck off in the middle of the day and got it from a vendor. And a patch for the sonic screwdriver. It now has a scrambled egg setting."

A snort escaped Rose before she could help it. One hand went to her nose, trying to hold back any further unnatural sounds. "Was that a present for Violet, or a present for the Doctor?" She couldn't imagine what purpose a scrambled egg setting would have… other than to feed Violet.

The Doctor said he wasn't entirely innocent himself. "I got her thirty-one monster novels. That's at least two weeks of blissful silence I just bought myself. She starts reading any faster, I'll get her a muzzle for Boxing Day." There was a large crash in the background. "I'd better go see what she's doing. It figures she'd get 'lost' on the way to her room."

Knowing Violet, the girl had tried to use the scooter inside the TARDIS and had slammed into something either painful or important. "Kiss her goodnight for me. And thanks for trying to call again."

"Figured it'd be safe after I got your email. Thanks for getting US out of our little predicament."

Rose blushed. "Once again, you'd be dead if it wasn't for me."

He chuckled, and it warmed her heart. Things would never be as they had been—time and the universe had seen to that. But some things never changed. "Yes, Rose Tyler, the world revolves around YOU. Goodnight. Merry Christmas."

"Happy Christmas."

She was saved the burden of having to end the conversation—he hung up on his end. Sighing, she put her head on her mother's shoulder. She'd never have all her heart's desires in one place at one time, but at that moment she'd been awful damned close…and that was a good Christmas. Violet was safe and sounding far better than her mother had reported earlier; apparently nearly being torn to shreds by the universe was just the thing. It was good to hear her child's voice after so long. The girl sounded so much more… mature. It was good to hear the Doctor again too. For the moment, everyone was safe, everyone was happy.

It was…nice. It was…far better than the red bicycle when she was twelve. And for now, at least…it was hers.

THE END.

Next time...

_There was a beep from Jack's wrist computer. It was a particularly annoying beep, something akin to the alarm clock, this way he'd never mistake it for anything else. It had not gone off since the alert had been set, but there was no question what that sound had been. _

There it was, plain as day, the nose on his face…something. Between two dormitories on a local university campus. It sat there all smug and arrogant and so very, very blue: the TARDIS. 


End file.
